U.S. REP. CIRO RODRIGUEZ: DRUG VIOLENCE HASN'T SPILLED OVER INTO US

US Rep Reassures W. Texas Residents

FORT HANCOCK -- The solitude of West Texas towns like Fort Hancock is
what attracts drug smugglers to the area, border law officials said
Friday while visiting with residents concerned for their safety.

The rural towns stretch 50 miles southeast of El Paso. They are bound
by farming towns on the Mexican side, where many killings, arson
attacks and kidnappings have occurred in the past few weeks. The area,
called the Valley of Juarez, had more than 50 murders in March.

U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-Texas, told frightened residents of Fort
Hancock that the narco violence has not spilled over to the U.S. side
yet.

"In terms of crime, we don't have any evidence to show that," he
said.

Rodriguez held a community meeting Friday at Fort Hancock High School
to hear the concerns of residents and border law officers.

The FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Border Patrol did not
comment on the situation in the Valley of Juarez, but they recognized
the concerns of U.S. residents that have surfaced in the past two weeks.

Debbie Brenzovich attended the meeting to let officials know she fears
for her safety.

"We heard a machine gun fire on Easter Sunday," she
said.

Fort Hancock Independent School District Superintendent Jose Franco
said many Mexican families arrived last weekend, and the schools
received 10 new students coming from the valley in one week.

"I welcome the students," he said. "The concern is that some of the
people coming over are people who instigated all of the violence."

Rodriguez, Franco and Hudspeth County sheriff's officials told Fort
Hancock residents to remain calm but to watch for suspicious activity.

During the past two years, the area bound by the valley on the Mexican
side and West Texas towns on the U.S. side became a hot corridor. It
was the motive for combat between two rival drug-trafficking
organizations -- the Juarez cartel, led by Vicente Carrillo Fuentes,
and the Sinaloa cartel, led by Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman.

As the U.S. government built the border fence halfway and beefed up
its inspections mostly at the large cities' ports of entry, the remote
West Texas region has become a strategic point for the drug cartels
and their contract-based gangs. Some of these areas go miles and miles
without a fence.

On the Mexican side, the rural areas' police are not equipped to
prevent violence.

Criminal organizations in the United States have historically chosen
smaller towns for the drug trade. Detroit gangs, for instance, handled
their crack-dealing operations in smaller towns in Pennsylvania, Ohio,
Kentucky and West Virginia.

Rodriguez said Gov. Rick Perry has directed away from the border areas
the money the state receives from the Department of Homeland

The international port of entry at Fort Hancock, TX Friday. Rudy
Gutierrez/El Paso Times (Rudy Gutierrez/El Paso Times)Security. He
also said the federal government should add $15 million to the $60
million Operation Stonegarden, which has already beefed up law
enforcement in West Texas.

As remote as it seems, Border Patrol Agent Valeria Morales said, Fort
Hancock has stepped up its efforts. She said the agency has doubled
the number of agents in that area in the past couple of years.

"Our agents are much more vigilant," Morales said.

Border Patrol officials at the meeting said the number of
apprehensions in the agency's El Paso sector have dropped
significantly because criminals and non-criminal immigrants arrested
are now prosecuted in federal courts. The drug seizures also have
declined, officials said.

"The activity level here is very, very low," Border Patrol Deputy
Chief Michael Pryzbyl said. "But it is an area of concern because of
the level of violence."

The violence in the Valley of Juarez has prompted the increase in
vigilance.

On Thursday, the Mexican army took over the patrolling of the towns
inhabited by few er than 18,000 people, said Facundo Rosas, the
federal police chief.

Last weekend, two federal police helicopters began flying over the
valley, and police increased their presence along the Juarez-Porvenir
highway.

Chihuahua Gov. Jose Reyes Baeza traveled to the area Monday and
promised to dispatch state police to the valley.

At El Porvenir, gang members gave residents deadlines to leave the
town or face consequences, such as death or kidnapping.

Francisco Gonzalez, 19, found a threatening note outside his
one-bedroom home in El Porvenir about a month ago.

"It said they gave me 24 hours to leave or they would kill me," he
said.

In distress, the ranch worker fled Mexico and crossed into the United
States with a tourist visa to settle in Fort Hancock. He said gunmen
had already killed one of his friends in a multiple shooting.

Now Gonzalez lives in a trailer and receives financial help from his
family in Mexico. He does not feel like a stranger on the U.S. side
because, he said, many people of El Porvenir have ties to Fort Hancock.

If the influx of immigrants continues, Fort Hancock school district's
Franco said, public safety could soon become a concern.

"The newcomers are going to let this die down first," he
said.

Rodriguez said he will go back to Fort Hancock in August to follow up
on the law-enforcement efforts. His district stretches from eastern
El Paso to San Antonio, where he lives.

Rodriguez is up for re-election in November. Republicans Will Hurd and
Francisco "Quico" Canseco are competing in next Tuesday's Republican
primary runoff to challenge him in November.